Insightful newsletter of Drishtikone: Issue #303 - Jinnah's Islamist Militias and the Art of False Equivalence
Jinnah refused every diplomatic solution that could stop partition because diplomacy was a facade from his side. He was already preparing for a full-on war against Hindus and Sikhs. Details here today
Photo by Randy Jacob on Unsplash
It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed. - Alexander Nix, ex-CEO of Cambridge Analytica
How many of the readers consider yourself to be Hindus? How many of you have family, relatives, friends, extended circles who have lived their lives as per Hindu faith?
Now, close your eyes and think back - how many of the Hindus in your circle ever drank cow urine?
I have not found even one in mine. Have you?
But look at how journalists, political leaders, cartoonists, and think-tank writers have been deriding and defining Hindus using the “cow urine” jibe.
And, they are helped by some vague and random person who drinks some of cow urine on the cue from a waiting “journalist” eager to create a bigoted narrative.
Fringe and random act by an unknown idiot - probably for money. But that is paraded as something central to Hinduism.
The same way, planned, orchestrated and synchronized violence carried out by Islamist militias of the Muslim League were equated to some random acts by some folks fighting out of anger, frustration and even helplessness due to lack of any action by the state to stop the unimaginable crime unleashed by Jinnah’s militias.
It is time to challenge the false equivalence between Jinnah’s genocidal Islamist militia and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Constructing False Equivalence using Fringe vs Mainstream actions of two communities
In India, history is distorted. That is known. Nothing new in that. But more importantly even the narrative is distorted using fringe or random acts on one side to whitewash well-planned and orchestrated acts on the other. There is a reason for that. Secularism as an idea was created as a counter to put down the voice of Hinduism. From the partition onwards.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah wanted his own Islamic country because
(1) be wanted an equal representation of Muslims in the parliament as would be there for the larger Hindu community if one person-one vote was to be practiced. This was in contract to Congress which was proportional representation based on one person-one vote as any democracy is. and
(2) due to personal ambitions and ego
Jinnah basically did not want the voting power of Hindus to take effect. It had to be countered.
All this was good. But when you seriously and objectively look at the actions and the strategies adopted by Nehru in those days and later, you will realize Nehru’s strategy against Hindus was basically very similar. Just that it was even more cunning.
He wanted to deconstruct Hinduism completely and make Hindus ashamed of their own heritage so the impact of the worst planned and orchestrated carnage against any community in history would not take away his opportunity to rule the country.
What Jinnah did with partition, Nehru did with the persecution of the RSS and Jan Sangh, as well as demonizing Hindu civilization.
But for understanding how false equivalence was used to implicate both Hindus and Muslims, when every evidence showed that the violence of partition was planned and executed by Muslims, let us go into history a bit.
What happened - the pain of partition
To understand what happened, we will first go into the stories narrated by the survivors of that time to find out the falsehoods that have been perpetrated by the chroniclers of that time.
Listen to this old Sikh gentleman properly. It is painful. Very very painful. But still listen to it. And then close your eyes and think what things strike very strange to you?
The Sikh gentleman says that in his village near Rawalpindi they had lived in peace for centuries. Together.
Then he says aggressive mobs with arms and firepower came towards their village to kill and demand for women. So many men that they were outnumbered.
Does that strike odd to you?
How can the demography of the area change so suddenly that the non-Muslims of that area in every village were outnumbered by the Muslims in that area?
How is it that all the Muslims of that area, outside of that village, not just came together but also got arms to target the Hindus and Sikhs?
Remember those two questions. For, no one asks them.
In fact, the way narratives are presented, it is ensured that they never will be asked.
The provincial elections had been held in 1937 and 1946. Between these two provincial elections, the seat counts for Muslim League versus Congress had changed drastically. Check below.
This was the start of the trend to create Muslim community as a vote bank.
When Germany surrendered in 1945, Congress Leaders were released as Lord Wavell wanted to start setting up the Interim Government on the principles of the 1942 Cripps proposal.
Lord Wavell called Congress, Muslim League, Sikh and other leaders to Simla.
The Muslim League rejected the Lord Wavell proposal at Simla by this statement.
On a final examination and the analysis of the Wavell Plan, we found that it was a snare. There was a combination consisting of Gandhi-Hindu Congress, which stand for India's Hindu national independence as one India and the latest exponent of geographical unity, Lord Wavell and Glancy-Khizar who are bent upon creating disruption among the Musalmans in the Punjab, and we are sought to be pushed into this arrangement which, if we had agreed to, as proposed by Lord Wavell we would have signed our death warrant. (Source)
As per Jinnah, accepting anything that Wavell shared would mean that Pakistan’s creation would be put in “cold storage” and create a “Hindu India” led by Congress.
The Wavell proposals set at naught both these conditions and called upon us to make the severest sacrifice. I know in his broadcast he said that these proposals are without prejudice to any future constitution or constitutions of India. While in one breath it is impressed upon us that these proposals are without prejudice and do not prejudge the Pakistan issue, yet the Plan in fact contradicts this in the next breath by its very terms. It is obvious to any intelligent man that if we accept this arrangement the Pakistan issue will be shelved and put in the cold storage indefinitely, whereas the Congress will have secured under this arrangement what they want, namely a clear road to their advance towards securing Hindu national independence of India, because the future Executive will work as a unitary Government of India and we know that this interim or provisional arrangement will have a way of setting down for an unlimited period and all the forces in the proposed Executive plus the known policy of the British Government and Lord Wavell's strong inclination for a united India, would completely jeopardise us. (Source)
Why was Jinnah so hell-bent on creating a different nation despite having opportunities to discuss harmony and diplomatic solutions?
And, more importantly why were his statements so heavily loaded against Hindus with hatred?
Jinnah’s genocidal private army - secret component of his strategy
The strategy of Muslim League was not just political. It was also militaristic as well.
It was building a force called Muslim League National Guard in Punjab and Bengal. In Bengal it was also called Azrail Bahini. In Islam, the “Devil of Death” is known as Azrail. The intention as well as the strategy was clear.
The Muslim National Guards were prepared for stabbing, setting fire to non-Muslim houses and terrorize non-Muslims. This was not a defensive force but an rioting and genocidal force.
The number of Muslim League National Guards in the Punjab province was around 39,000!
In Sindh, the Muslim National Guards were a 10,000 strong force and Muslim League was helping them by equipping them with arms (Source).
In Bengal as well the Muslim National Guard was being mobilized at a rapid pace.
This was not a “National Guard” but an all-out genocidal army with arms, daggers, swords, venicles and even petrol (for arson) to target non-Muslims in Punjab and Bengal.
How the heck was this missed by everyone?
Apparently it wasn’t.
They were called out and banned but also the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was banned as well. When the forces went to check the premises, while RSS allowed its premises to be checked in Punjab, the Muslim National Guard became aggressive. Steel helmets, uniforms and hate-literature against the Hindus and Sikhs was found in those premises. The arms, it is said was concealed at the residence of Mian Air-ud-din, Lahore’s Mayor!
Oh, how much it resembles the strategy and execution of Delhi massacres by Tahir Hussain!
All this explains one thing. That, even while Jinnah and other Muslim League ‘leaders’ were talking to Congress and other parties, their cadres were secretly preparing for a full on assault and war.
So, when Jinnah uses the “Pakistan in cold storage” argument, he is also bothered about the preparation that was already underway to annex Pakistan by killing and massacring the non-Muslims from areas that he wanted within Pakistan. That is why acceptance of any proposal that did not cleanly give Pakistan on a platter was unacceptable.
The genie that had already been rolled out - how could he now put it back in the bottle? For, a political settlement would have meant exactly that!
Prof. Gurbachan Singh Talib writes in the book “Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947” (Source) as to why there undeniable evidence that Muslim League started these attacks against the Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab.
That the Muslim League “Action” against Hindus and Sikhs was planned, is shown by several undeniable factors, the logic of which is unescapable. These are:
(a) These attacks began in the several districts mentioned above, as well as in Lahore and Amritsar, at almost the same time, as if the League forces were waiting only for a signal, for a word of command or a psychological moment to begin their work of bringing the Punjab under the heel of a Muslim League government.
(b) These attacks were open, unchecked and of the nature of a thorough extermination-the methods being everywhere uniform, such as stabbing, arson and the humiliations inflicted in forcibly converting the men and dishonouring the women of the minorities.
(c) These attacks all occurred in the heavy Muslim-majority districts, and in the cities of Lahore, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jullundur with their large Muslim populations. This was in the initial stages. In the somewhat later stages, such as a month after the beginning of these attacks, it was again the districts in which the Muslim majority was slightly smaller, though still very large, such as Gujrat, Gujranwala and Sialkot that these attacks began. No attacks on the part of Hindus and Sikhs on Muslims by way of reprisals or retaliation occurred in the non-Muslim majority districts during, all the months up till August, 1947. Those districts, with the exception only of Gurgaon, in which too the aggressors were the Muslim Meos, remained quiet, and the non-Muslims, perturbed as they deelpy were over what was happening in West Punjab, remained on the whole peaceful.
(d) As a corollary to the above, in the period up till August, 1947 there were about a million Hindu and Sikh refugees from the Western districts of the Punjab, from the North-Western Frontier Province, from Baluchistan and the devastated city of Lahore, besides Amritsar, who had to be looked after in refugee camps by the Punjab Government, by the Sikh States of the Punjab and by bodies like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Shromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. There were very few Muslim refugees anywhere in this period. Such few as there were, came mainly from Amritsar, where alone up till August, the Hindus and Sikhs had been able to put up anything like a fight for life against Muslim aggression.
(e) The Muslims gave further evidence of plan and preparation in their aggression in respect of the following features of their action: (i) They were well supplied with arms, such as daggers, swords, spears and even fire-arms. (ii) They had bands of stabbers and their auxiliaries, who covered the assailant, ambushed the victim and if necessary disposed of his body. These bands were subsidized by the Muslim League, and in many cases cash payments were made to individual assassins on the number of Hindus and Sikhs bagged. There were also regular patrolling parties in jeeps which went about sniping and picking off any stray Hindu or Sikh (This was a feature mainly of the cities of Lahore and Amritsar). (iii) Petrol was in plentiful supply with the Muslim aggressors everywhere-both for purposes of transport and for quick arson. This must have taken some time to be collected in such huge quantities. (iv) The concert between the Leaguers of a place and their opposites of other places and the Muslim police and authorities everywhere, was remarkable. Till non-Muslim military appeared on the scene, there was no relief at all for Hindus and Sikhs, as the Muslim police never took action against the Muslim aggressors. (v) In towns like Amritsar, where the earliest attacks occurred, even before any Hindu or Sikh was thinking that fighting would take place, the Muslims were fully prepared for the offensive. For example, they had distributed among their own folk all the available sword-blades in Amritsar. On Muslim shops had been written in prominent lettering ‘Muslim Shop’ in Urdu to protect these shops from planned arson And there was other unmistakable evidence of this, which will be mentioned when we came to narrate the incidents connected with Amritsar.
It is obvious that the attacks on Hindus and Sikhs were planned and targeted. Not random.
Bengal Violence by Muslim League
The scenario in Bengal in August 1946 had been even more brazen. There, in response to the call of Direct Action Day, the violence was specifically targeted by Muslims against the Hindus with the full support of British police. The massacres were done and executed with impunity in Bengal and Bihar.
The violence for partition of India had started from Bengal. People in Punjab heard and read the stories coming out from there and understood what was in store for them.
There was hardly any presence of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Bengal.
Given how the violence was planned, started, executed and then the stories obfuscated by equating the hundreds and thousands of Hindu and Sikh killings with a few of those of the Muslims - more in defense or out of anger by those whose near and dear ones had died in Punjab and Bengal - history was deliberately distorted.
By the Muslim League for obvious reasons.
And by Congress (Nehru specifically) because after partition, given the anger and the tragedies, a Hindu party’s victory was to be obvious.
That was thwarted by using Gandhi’s assassination to start persecution of the RSS. A story which we will discuss some other day.
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Cairn’s threats to the Indian government: UK's Cairn Energy has identified USD 70 billion of Indian assets overseas for the potential seizure to collect USD 1.72 billion due from the government -- a move if successful will put India in league with Pakistan and Venezuela which faced similar enforcement action over failure to pay arbitration awards. The assets identified range from Air India's planes to vessels belonging to the Shipping Corporation of India, and properties owned by state-owned banks to oil and gas cargoes of PSUs, three people familiar with the matter said. These assets are across several jurisdictions, they said without giving further details. Cairn plans to move courts in the US to Singapore for the seizure of the assets in absence of the Indian government's refusal to honor an international arbitration award. (Source)
Anti-semitic violence in Canada: Jewish people living in Canada are facing violent attacks by Pro-Palestine mobs. As per reports, on May 15 (local time) Pro-Palestine mob attacked a man who was trying to save another Jewish man. He was beaten up with sticks. While attacking, the Pro-Palestine mob threw glasses and pelted stones on the Jewish people while chanting Allahu Akbar. (Source)
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video corner: Strange Village of Malana
Malana is a strange village. It is situated near Kullu.
From Kasol, Malana is about 21 km. A jeep carries you over the first 18 km, and then you trek uphill. But the climb up the frost-hardened slopes is still tough. At 8,700 feet, Malana is located on a narrow plateau, high on one side of a wild and remote glen that abuts the river Parvati in the Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh. The Malana Nullah, which flows through the valley, comes from Deotibba, the 20,000 feet snow-covered peak that overhangs the glen and the village. (Source)
And is the cannabis capital of the world for the quality of cannabis one can find there. In fact, Malana’s charas is some of the best in the world and is highly prized the world over. Even in the weed capital - Amsterdam!
The inhabitants consider themselves to be descendants of Alexander ‘the Great’.
The people of Malana have their own customs and regard themselves as the world’s oldest democracy.
Because of the primacy of their own rules in resolving their disputes, they did not even recognize the Indian Constitution until very recently.
These people speak the Kanashi/Raksh (supposedly the dialect of devils residing there long ago) language. Only the villagers can understand their language. No one, not even folks from the nearby villages can understand their language. It is said to be a combination of Sanskrit and some Tibetan dialects.
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